


Ab imo pectore (pours the sea)

by clear



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Getting Together, M/M, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clear/pseuds/clear
Summary: Yaku owns tavern on the coast, and has a fair few thoughts about one of his recurring customers.It remains to be seen if they are good thoughts or bad ones.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Yaku Morisuke
Comments: 16
Kudos: 129





	Ab imo pectore (pours the sea)

**Author's Note:**

> _ab imo pectore_ = Latin, "from the deepest chest"

There are lots of things to dislike about Tetsurou Kuroo.

He makes it so _easy_ to, like the irritating parts of his personality are apples in a basket left unattended in the market square, gleaming and ripe for the taking.

Instead of calling out and vying for people to purchase, he just _exists_ , and Morisuke Yaku is his _best_ customer. He takes apples by the basket, and sooner or later the list he has in his head of _Reasons to Dislike Kuroo_ grows by as many lines as there were fruits he dragged home. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Kuroo has never brought him _actual_ apples. Perhaps he should add “ _inconsiderate_ ” to the list.

Yaku recoils when he feels a touch between his eyebrows before he registers it as the cool, gentle press of a thumb into his forehead. He looks up and sees eyes the color of dark, polished cedar wood, registers the dark mark just below the corner of the left one, and lets the tension in his shoulders unwind a little.

“If you keep making faces like that, no one is going to want to approach the bar,” Koushi Sugawara admonishes. He is standing on the other side of the counter, wiping down the wood surface with a rag, but his attention is still trained on Yaku. “What’s bothering you?” His concern gives way to a wry smile, and Yaku feels his stomach drop a little. “Is it Kuroo?”

Yaku feels the scowl return to his face like it’s bewitched by the name itself. “No,” he says, taking up a sudden interest in polishing the stack of tankards to his left. They’ll probably need all they have before the night is done, if _someone_ makes good on their promise.

He lets the background noise of the hall fill the silence between them for a moment. They are all the sounds of natural existence for the tavern. When _The Scruffy Cat_ purrs, it’s the rumbling susurrations of conversations, low and indistinct; when she yowls it’s the boisterous peals of laughter after one (or four) too many rounds of drinks; and when she flexes her claws it sounds like the clank of cups and dishes and the scrape of benches and chairs across the wood floor.

Yaku has grown used to living inside her—his family has only ever lived and worked in the spaces between her ribs, as the heart that beats to keep this place alive.

“Ahh,” Suga lets out a thoughtful hum as his eyes track to the clock posted over the front door of the tavern. Yaku doesn’t look up from what he’s doing, but he keeps his attention trained on the other’s voice. “They’re late.”

Of course they are, he doesn’t need to say it.

Yaku sniffs. Picks up another glass to clean. “Probably got too drunk on the way in and crashed their ship.”

“What a horrible thing to say,” Suga replies, but it’s too amused to be sincere. “Though I doubt that. You know they always come thirsty. Remember when they nearly dried us out last time?”

Yaku would never forget it.

The look on Kuroo’s flushed face when Yaku had, in fact, kept a running tally of _every_ drink he served to the crew that night had been more than enough satisfaction for the entire year. The gob-smacked slack of his jaw and the way his glazed eyes had still grown comically wide was something he _wished_ he could commission from a portrait artist and hang behind the bar for all to see.

That is, until the next morning when Kuroo had banged on the back door of the tavern, the door that actually led into his connected apartment, at _eight_ in the morning and wouldn’t stop until Yaku _actually_ came downstairs from his bedroom. When he opened it, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep since he’d only gone to bed a couple hours prior, Kuroo was standing tall, proud, and dressed in the bright morning sun.

Yaku had watched him put away countless drinks over the course of the previous night, actually thought fleetingly that if he _died_ , let it be at the inn and not here, and yet— _there_ he was, not a whisper of a hangover across his tanned face and not a single weary slump to his bones.

It was as if the smug desire to _annoy_ Yaku was enough to pick him up from death’s door and march him all the way _here_ to his own home.

Or he was probably still drunk. Either way, he was exhausted and cranky and pissed off that _Kuroo_ , of all people, was the first face he saw _hours_ before he was supposed to wake up.

 _“Good morning, Yakkun,”_ the other man’s voice was low and rumbling, lips curled around the nickname like a purr. He was nearly the size of the doorframe he stood in, the tall _freak_ , so he leaned against one edge of it to inch into Yaku’s space a head and a half below.

 _“What do you want.”_ Yaku replied simply, not usually one to mince words, even less so when he was still practically asleep on his feet.

 _“I just wanted to pay the tab,”_ Kuroo replied, a broad smile on his lips. His eyes shined like he was priding himself on _doing Yaku a favor_ by being there, and he cocked his hip and stepped aside to reveal a leather-strapped trunk on the ground beside him. It was nearly the size of the stoop’s top step, and came up to the tall man’s knee. _“It would be disrespectful to_ not _pay what we owe as soon as possible, right?”_

Yaku actually _laughed_ aloud at that. _“When have you_ ever _settled a debt? That’s how you got_ started _in all of this, isn’t it?”_

Something flickered in Kuroo’s face, perhaps reacting to the mirth in Yaku’s own. He leaned closer, crowding into his smaller space until all Yaku could see was hazel-gold eyes steeped with a startling clarity that made his face inexplicably warm.

 _“I may be a pirate, but I’m a good man, Morisuke,”_ he said deeply, _seriously_ , and Yaku’s skin felt two sizes too tight on his body. _“I settle my debts with the people that matter.”_

Yaku floundered for a moment, and Kuroo backed out of his space before he had any chance to retort. His mind was still working overtime to process the scent of musk and spice that lingered in their previously-shared space, so much so that he didn’t notice Kuroo turn tail, long legs taking the stoop steps two at a time.

 _“Have a good day,”_ he called, looking back when he’d completed the front path and stood at the edge of his little front garden. Yaku simply narrowed his eyes in response, and Kuroo chuckled as he unlatched the gate and strolled back around the side of the building, towards the main street and out of sight.

He’d left the chest behind, and it took Yaku longer than he wanted to admit to drag it inside. But when he finally managed to settle it on the ground between the parlor and the small kitchen, he unfastened the straps and tipped it open.

Sitting atop a _pile_ of gold and silver coins, polished tableware, and luxurious silks, was a single folded note.

_Hopefully this covers last night’s tab. Heard from some of the girls in town that business has been hard the past couple of months, and the navy is sticking their noses in where they shouldn’t._

_Keep the change, and stay open until we come home again._

¤ ¤ ¤

Thankfully, the _Cat_ is as busy as ever when the sun goes down that night. Enough sailors poured in after opening that the time passes fairly quickly, the drinks flow freely, and the money comes easy.

The bustle is steady and actually _entertaining_ , considering they’d paid for a handful of musicians to stop by this evening to keep everyone in good spirits, so Yaku almost forgets about the fact that tavern is emptier than it should be, according to a promise.

He checks the clock again, and it reads ten o’clock. Four hours late.

Over the years, Tetsurou Kuroo has given him a lot of reasons to dislike him—the stupid, smug smirk that’s always etched on his face like he was _born_ self-satisfied, the way he’s _always_ trying to get a rise out of him, no matter the occasion. The _annoying_ way his eyes slide across the tavern to seek Yaku out when he tells a story or makes a comment that throws the rest of his crew into rapturous peals of laughter, no matter where the other man is.

 _Look at me_ , Kuroo seems to say at every turn, from the way he speaks to the pompous sway in his limbs to the _stupid_ red velvet coat he always seems to have thrown over his shoulders. _Look at me. Look at me._

He is entirely too full of himself. But perhaps what’s more infuriating is the fact that, according to his crew members and the whispers of the _other_ sailors and pirates that pass through the _Cat_ , he has _every right to be_.

The chest locked tight in his attic that he is _still_ selling things from a year later is probably proof of that, too.

Kuroo is a terror on the seas as much as he is in Yaku’s family bar, this much he knows from the stories traded by other pirates and sailors that pass through his doors. He’s garnered respect from his admirers and fear from his enemies. As much as Yaku had _hoped_ he was all talk from the moment they’d met because it would be easier to write him off, he has proven the world over that he’s earned everything he’s worked for. Kuroo has a big mouth and a big swagger, but a big mind and ship to match. He takes all the right risks and plays all the right defenses, and seems to have the time of his life doing it.

He breezes into others’ lives like a maelstrom, and never leaves them quite the same as when they started.

Yaku has been trying to rebuild himself around this fact for the past four or so years. But there’s only so many times one can keep setting their sticks until they accept that it’s time for something stronger, or to simply fold and _move_.

But backing down from Kuroo is one of the _last_ things on his list of long-term plans.

So that’s why he decides to stymie the _feeling_ welling in his gut before he can really acknowledge it as worry. Kuroo can do a lot of annoying things, like upending the carefully-planned flow of his life, like pushing all his buttons in the right combinations, like being _late_ when he’d written two weeks ago from another port to say he was _coming_ , but he’s never actually done anything to make him _unreliable_.

He’s never left a debt unpaid to him, and he’s never broken a promise.

Things will be _fine_.

Yaku leans against the bar-top, having switched with Suga on counter duty an hour or two before. He takes in the sight of the full tavern around him, inhales the scent of brine and warm skin and tobacco smoke, wrinkles his nose a little at the faint sour of sweat, but then quickly reminds himself that _he_ could probably keep much better company, too.

A glance to his left finds Suga leaning up over the counter on his tiptoes, elbows perched on the wood and gently hedging into the space of a brunette sitting on the other side. He has a strong jaw and a proud face, and Yaku has to admit the Navy blues look striking on him. Suga’s eyes are shining and he tosses his head and smiles, kittenish, at _just_ the right moment, and Yaku snorts when the other man’s fingers brush Suga’s as he passes his glass back to him to refill. Suga’s got his own game to entertain him tonight, it seems, and Yaku wonders how long it’s taken to have the Navy man eating out of the palm of his hand. Could it be a new record? _Charming bastard._

He locks eyes with Suga for the briefest of instances and rolls his own before turning away to look to his right. He is perched against the corner of the bar, where the sturdy wood is jointed together in an L that butts against the wall a short ways from him. There is no one seated at this section, and perhaps that’s due to what’s sitting on top.

A cat, _his_ cat, stretched out on the polished wood, legs splayed and tail swishing back and forth like he is _trying_ to take up as much room as possible. His white flank, dappled with orange and black all over, rises and falls with the rhythm of steady sleep. How he can nap so comfortably in the middle of all this noise, Yaku doesn’t know. Perhaps it was just one of his lucky quirks.

When he’d wandered in on a rainy day two years ago and hadn’t left by closing, Yaku led him upstairs that night too and that was that. When Suga had found out the next morning that he had _adopted_ a pet, he’d insisted they name him, and _Biscuit_ had been the choice since it was what he and Suga had shared for breakfast that morning. After they’d had a good laugh and Suga had made fun of him for naming such a special something so mundane, he’d also informed him that male calico cats were rare and lucky, and that maybe good things were coming his way now.

Yaku thinks on that a little longer as he leans over and scratches between Biscuit’s sleeping ears.

And in the next moment, when someone clears his throat behind him and turns around, the last thing he expects is to look up and meet eyes the color of tropical water.

Maybe luck _does_ follow Biscuit around.

“Akaashi,” he says, all the air leaving him at once. He blinks, recovers a bit of his usual demeanor. “H-Hi. Welcome back.” It’s admittedly a little strange that Akaashi is the first face he sees out of the crew from _The Grimalkin_ , as Akaashi has always been the type of person contented to work his own brand of studious magic in the background. He tries to tell himself that his first inclination is to _not_ look around the tall man in front of him towards the entrance.

“Yaku,” Akaashi says in response, and Yaku watches the other’s eyes flit around the bar before settling on his again. His voice is low as he draws a little nearer. “There is a little bit of a… situation. Can you help?”

“Situation?” he echoes in a low hiss, suddenly hyper aware of anyone close by. “What do you mean? Where are the others? Are you being followed?”

“No one is following,” the other replies. “The ship is fine, we don’t really plan on being caught.” There is a flicker of a confident smirk that looks _good_ on him, determined, but it’s gone as he glances over to the bar. “Can you step away for a while?”

Now, Yaku is openly looking around for any sign of the rest of the people that _should_ be with Akaashi. But in the midst of his search, Akaashi holds him by the forearms and looks down at him with _urgency_ in the set of his jaw. “Yaku. Please.”

Akaashi isn’t exactly _ruffled_ per se—it’s rare, in fact, to _ever_ see him caught off-guard—but the fact that one of the most level-headed figures in this group is acting like this does little to put Yaku at ease. Akaashi wouldn’t be trying to draw him away from work if it wasn’t important, and he’s not answering his questions because _showing_ him would be quicker.

“Yes,” he finally responds, and Akaashi lets him go.

“Go to the back,” the taller man tells him. “To your place. We’ll meet you there.” The last cursory glance around the bustling tavern conveys the fact that lies unspoken between them both. _Too much Navy in here._

Yaku turns to do exactly that, but stops by the opposite end of the bar where Suga is lingering. Apparently, he hadn’t missed the exchange, and he’s grateful for his business partner’s perceptiveness.

“There’s a _situation_ , apparently,” he says to him, leaned in close. “Akaashi asked me to help. I’ll be upstairs, I guess.”

Suga nods, and offers him a small smile. “Do whatever you need to. I’ll handle tonight, don’t worry. Kiyoko, Yachi, and Yamaguchi are all here too.”

Yaku could kiss him if it wouldn’t run the risk of ruining his chances tonight. Instead, he gives him an emphatic _thank you_ and a squeeze on the shoulder before he slips through the door to the back. He hurries through the kitchen and storage rooms to a door concealed behind a couple stacks of barrels, and pulls a ring of keys from his pocket to unlatch the two locks.

He passes through the door, locks it again from the other side, and steps into his home’s front hallway. He spends a minute igniting a lamp on the table to give the room some light, and suppresses a little shiver at the autumn chill that is now more apparent when he is alone instead of in the midst of dozens of other bodies. Just in front of him is the front door, and Yaku feels _worry_ come back in full force as he closes the gap with steps he doesn’t think about and throws it open.

There are two and a half figures on his front stoop. Tall, broad-shouldered Koutarou Bokuto whips around, his eyes wide and sparkling in the light of the lantern hanging outside the door that he must have lit, and opposite him is Nobuyuki Kai, who gives him a nod and a small, polite smile in greeting.

Between the two of them, Tetsurou Kuroo hangs limply, like a scarecrow removed from its post after three too many bird mobbings. Instead of hay and stuffing spilling out of his pants, though, his white shirt presses and sags against his torso with the undeniable scarlet cling of blood.

Yaku isn’t really sure how, but his voice comes out quick and even when he says, “Let’s get him to the kitchen.”

His mother’s father had been a doctor. He was a kind, patient man with steady hands that smelled like tobacco and laudanum in equal measure. He’d worked in the city and briefly in the Navy, and Yaku, being a young boy, pestered him for stories of the _worst_ things he’d seen, until his mother returned from the kitchen and cuffed him for wanting to know such ghastly things.

When he was twelve to about sixteen, he spent days with him in his clinic, acting as a junior assistant when he could. He remembers one day in particular, and upon reflection, he guesses he could call it a _turning point_ in the way he thought about and did these things.

It had been the middle of spring, when he was fourteen—a slow, steady stream of toothaches and stomach problems, easy examinations and prescriptions he passed on with the confidence gained from decades of experience. They were just about to close for the night when a group of men came in like a whirlwind, work clothes soaked through with sweat and covered in thin layers of dust. They had a friend out in the back of a horse-drawn cart stopped out front, and his grandfather helped to pull the man inside on a stretcher.

Yaku remembers feeling sick when the blood-soaked blanket was finally pulled back, revealing the aftermath of what he later found out was a particularly nasty accident involving a plough and some ornery draft animals out in the country. When they finally got the man clean, stitched, and stable, it was past midnight, and he remembers lingering a few feet from his grandfather as he washed his face in a basin in the back room of the clinic. He asked how he _did_ it—how he cared for people, saved their lives when they might’ve stumbled into his office looking completely horrific. He’d never seen an injury like that before.

 _“Ah… Well, you just sort of_ do _it, Mori,”_ he’d said after he patted his face dry. _“In some cases, it becomes all I think about. My focus narrows in, and I take things one step at a time. It’s not unlike working out a knot, I’d say. You address the issues in little bits, until the whole thing unravels and goes smooth again. But the most important thing is that you don’t give up.”_

When Yaku finished washing his own hands, his grandfather passed him his rag to dry them, but paused and ruffled his strawberry curls with pointed affection.

_“It helps a lot to have reliable people helping you out, too.”_

Yaku understands his grandfather’s words now, looking at the man now lying back on his kitchen table. Bokuto and Kai are standing on either side of it, having just set him down by his arms. They seem frozen, like the sight of their captain between them groaning faintly in agony is something they’d never expected in their lives.

One step at a time.

“Kai,” Yaku says, and both men jump like they’ve been released from a trance. “Go through the house to find a few more lamps. I’ll probably need more light to see what we’re working with. Bokuto, light the lanterns in here and cut his shirt. It’s gotta come off, but I don’t want to jostle him any more than we have to. After you’ve done that, get a fire going in the place behind you.”

As soon as he finishes, the three of them split in different directions—Bokuto and Kai off to follow their instructions, and Yaku to a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen where he keeps his medical supplies. He does it by feel until the room grows steadily brighter as Bokuto shuffles hastily around the space. He’s kept a healthy stock up over the years, between his grandfather’s influence and the convenience of being able to immediately address particularly nasty bar-fight outcomes downstairs before shipping them to the _actual_ doctor, and he hauls it all over to the table because he’s not sure what he’s dealing with yet.

He returns to the table a couple minutes later, having drawn a sizable bucket of water from the basin he keeps in here during the winter when there’s less threat of bugs. He sets it down on the floor by the table and throws a stack of clean rags on the chair pulled out next to it. Beside him, Bokuto tucks a dagger back into the sheath at his hip and Yaku hears the whisper of silk as the remains of Kuroo’s shirt flutter to the ground in a heap.

“Bastard,” comes the sudden, barely-intelligible growl from the figure on the table. “’S my favorite shirt.”

Yaku’s hands shake a little as he sets them on his knees and pulls himself back up to his feet from his crouch. Now that he has more light, he sees the sheen of sweat covering Kuroo’s bronze skin, can track the places where bruises are starting to bloom on it, mottled red and purple. He notices the way his chest rises and falls in shallow, rapid breaths, probably to deal with the pain, and his eyes travel down further to meet the very _obvious_ source of his bloody shirt.

There are two stab wounds off to the side on his stomach, raw and glistening and triumphant and shouting _look at me!_ in the way they dribble fresh blood down over Kuroo’s side and onto Yaku’s table below.

“Don’t get mad at _me_ ,” Bokuto says to the other, and it seems like his own instincts are _finally_ kicking in as he reaches for a clean rag without Yaku’s instruction, wets it, and starts to wipe down the wounds. He ignores the way Kuroo hisses and twitches away from it—instead he uses a broad hand to press his hip into the table and _make_ him still. “Blame the prick that stabbed you. He cut it _first_.”

“Fuck off,” Kuroo slurs, and Yaku feels a bit of worry ebb from his body. At least he seems more lucid than when he came in.

“Is this the only pressing injury?” Yaku asks, sorting through his medical supplies and nodding gratefully when Kai materializes and sets an oil lamp down beside him to make it easier. “It’s just stab wounds, right? There’s nothing left inside?”

“Yes,” he replies, looking over at Bokuto and Kuroo, who seem to be having a mostly one-sided, indistinct argument among themselves. “To both questions. Thankfully things were able to de-escalate before things got too out of hand. Just bruises and tender jaws and noses, I’d say.”

“ _Just_ stab wounds,” Kuroo grumbles with a dry laugh. “You’re not the one who’s stomach is on fire right now.”

“Shut up,” Bokuto says, and it sounds like a genuine laugh. “You are not the first pirate to ever get stabbed. It wasn’t even something _cool_ like mine. Get stabbed by a cutlass, and _then_ you can whine about it.”

Leave it to pirates to be so blasé about this. Leave it to _Bokuto_ to turn it into a contest.

More relief washes over Yaku, but is quickly replaced with burning curiosity. Just what the hell had _happened_?

Despite this, he does his best to push it all down, for now, and _focus on the task at hand_. He finally takes up the vial of sutures and needles he’d set out, along with a small bottle of alcohol, and rounds the table to hedge Bokuto out of the way. He takes a moment to examine the wounds up close—they look straightforward, as far as injuries of this type go. In his older, more practiced days at the clinic, he’d seen people carved up in muggings that his grandfather was still able to carefully stitch closed.

Kuroo’s wounds don’t go through his body, and the lines are fairly clean where the skin had been split apart. It doesn’t really seem like anything that would stretch beyond his hesitant expertise, and judging from the way that Bokuto had been bickering moments before and Kai is waiting patiently in the wings to be needed, they aren’t worried in a life-or-death way, either.

Yaku picks up another clean rag and douses it with alcohol. He begins to dab at the wound, and pulls his hands back immediately and carefully when Kuroo flinches. Bokuto and Kai move automatically to hold him by the legs and feet. Of course they’ve done this before. Like Bokuto had said, this wasn’t their first spat with injury, on land _or_ at sea, if the scars criss-crossing their tanned arms and chests have anything to say about it.

“Stop being a baby,” Yaku chides, speaking directly to Kuroo for the first time that night. Despite the circumstances, a _tiny_ part of him feels a macabre sort of glee that his first words to him are rather justified admonishment. If he can poke fun at him like this even now, he must be a very bad person, or viscerally confident that Kuroo will pull through this just fine.

Kuroo mumbles something unintelligible in response, and Yaku rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother to riddle it out as he finishes cleaning and begins to thread the sutures. Bokuto shakes his shoulders gently when he seems to relax in his hold, but a quick hand held above his lips and nose signals he’s still breathing. Yaku decides to start stitching after the brief pause, and falls into focused silence as he works.

He makes up his mind that the man will be fine. Kuroo had sent a letter two weeks ago that he was coming _home_ , and while he’s done a lot of annoying things, like arriving late, letting himself get stabbed _twice_ , and bleeding all over his kitchen table, he’s never broken a promise.

¤ ¤ ¤

Once they had gotten Kuroo stitched and bandaged, the three of them moved him carefully into Yaku’s bed to rest. It was then in that particular light that Yaku noticed the bruises that had bloomed on Bokuto’s jaw, chest, and cheek, and it came out that this was more than Kuroo’s own scuffle. He’d rubbed salve over the bruises with a light and practiced touch, admonished him with only a _little_ effort (because what was the _point_ of berating a pirate, the _First Mate_ of a ship no less), and sent him and Kai back downstairs for a much-deserved drink. Not on the house, though—they’d stirred up too much trouble that night for _that_ much of Yaku’s sympathy.

Akaashi appeared shortly thereafter, Biscuit cradled comfortably in his arms—the calico had always liked him best when they all came to visit—and gave him the whole story over cups of tea shared in the kitchen beside the fire.

They _were_ late getting into port, set back about three hours from a nasty storm at sea a couple of days before. Combined with the unexpectedly heavy Navy presence that had blown in a couple days before unannounced, this had apparently set Kuroo more on edge than usual. So when the captain had encountered Suguru Daisho and his crew in the market square while on a quick, furtive hunt for supplies, things had not gone well. Insults and snide comments were traded—one in particular had struck a nerve and led to a nasty punch thrown by Kuroo, which led to _another_ , and soon after that, four men from each side had begun trading blows—their bunch included Kuroo, his loyal-as-ever First Mate Bokuto, Yamamoto, who could always be trusted to finish _any_ fight, never mind if it was even his own, and Lev, a relatively new recruit to their team, who was probably just teenaged and foolhardy and looking for a way to use his size to prove himself to his late-twenties mates. When Kuroo had the other captain pressed against an alley wall by his throat, he pulled a knife and they slithered away while the rest of them reeled with their suddenly-bleeding captain.

The story had set Yaku’s jaw tight and his stomach ill at-ease. He’d never really liked when Daisho and his crew came in to the tavern. Despite being _pirates_ , they gave off scummier countenances than most, overconfident privateers and Navy brutes included. Leave it to their slimy bastard of a captain to bring a knife into a fistfight.

Even so, something hadn’t sat right with him about this story. Kuroo got annoyed, got frustrated, but Yaku had rarely ever seen him _angry_ . Despite all of his snark, all of his talent for provocation and being a general pain in the ass, it was rare for him to have _genuine_ bouts of anger. It was even more unthinkable of him to be provoked to the point of picking an _actual_ fight with someone in lieu of some kind of pissing contest. From stories and actions Yaku had gathered over the years, it seemed like those real fits of fury only came out when something or someone close to Kuroo was threatened, like a feral tomcat yowling and spitting to deter someone from _his_ alley.

 _“Any idea what Daisho said to royally piss him off?”_ Yaku had asked, pulling his eyes away from the flames in the hearth to look up at Akaashi.

Something like surprise flickered across the other’s face for the briefest of instants, before his the corners of his mouth turned down in a more decisive frown. _“I couldn’t hear it,”_ he replied, but something about it had seemed… off. _“You should ask him yourself.”_

The exchange had occurred thirty minutes prior, but Yaku finds he can think of little else as he shuffles around, now alone in his kitchen. Most of the medical supplies and aftermath of Kuroo’s treatment is gone, having been graciously taken care of by Kai before he said his farewells and retreated downstairs. Now he is taking care of what’s left, straightening odds and ends that had been left over from this afternoon. He spends a couple minutes picking at a sour cherry scone from a box Suga had brought to him before they opened that day when he realizes he hasn’t eaten that night.

The menial tasks had distracted him from the fact that Akaashi’s last words were spoken like he’d changed his mind about what to say at the last moment. But now that he’s still, standing and chewing quietly in his kitchen, the noise is back.

 _You should ask him yourself_ echoes on repeat in his head, and Morisuke hates the undercurrent of uncertainty that shoots through him at the thought of hedging that conversation with Kuroo.

He’s hardly ever been unsure when it comes to the other man, so it makes no sense why it comes into full force _now_.

He scrubs a hand through his short hair and whirls around to focus on the pile of soiled rags lying discarded in the now-empty bucket by the washbasin. More silk fabric lies on top, the _other_ remnants of Kuroo’s shirt they had removed when they bandaged his stomach and moved his unconscious body into Yaku’s room. Kuroo will need a new one tomorrow—he’s sure none of his would possibly fit given how _small_ he is compared to the other. His brain attempts to think through the logistics of retrieving one from their ship, of fetching some poor cabin boy to make the trek down and back again, and his brain decides that it’s much too exhausted to work through such an affair. At this point, when everything has finished catching up to him, it’s even tired enough to stop considering Akaashi’s words.

When there’s nothing more to be done in the kitchen, he stands and stretches. He feels his back pop in a way that’s deliciously satisfying, but reminds him of the weariness that’s suddenly settled into his bones like a hex. He’s used to staying up _much_ later than this, until he sends the last of the drunkards in the bar packing for the night somewhere around three or four, but this has been anything _but_ a usual night.

What was supposed to be a night where Kuroo and his crew drink until they’re all relaxed and happy, telling jokes and swapping stories with increasingly tenuous truth the deeper into their tankards they dive, has _not_ worked out that way. Instead, his body has gone through the wringer of a focused adrenaline high taking his best shot at _fixing_ Kuroo, and now it’s still trying to putter on when there is hardly any left to give.

He realizes with a slight pang of guilt that Suga is probably downstairs working double-time attending to the rowdy Saturday crowd, but it’s quickly discarded when the Suga in his brain assures him not to worry, he can handle it. He decides he’ll offer him double of the night’s pay for covering the work of two people, and that puts at least one concern to bed.

 _Bed._ That’s a nice thought, and he decides to indulge in it. Yaku sighs and puts out the fire in the hearth and snuffs the lamps and lanterns on the first floor. He double-checks the locks on both entrances to the apartment before heading upstairs, and quietly pushes the door to his room open.

He feels like an intruder in his own bedroom when he catches sight of Kuroo still fast asleep beneath Yaku’s blankets, mostly because he looks like he _belongs_ there. He creeps to the side of the bed and perches on it, taking quick stock of the sleeping man to make sure he’s still alright. He’d administered some painkillers and a mild sedative so he wouldn’t toss and turn and risk hurting his stitches, and they seem to be doing the job just fine, to Yaku’s quiet relief.

His mind must _really_ be worn out now, because he allows himself a rare moment to openly _admire_ Kuroo. He isn’t unattractive—in fact, Yaku is loath to admit that he is one of the most handsome men he’s ever seen. The fact that he’d also managed to fill an entire crew with similarly young, broad attractive cohorts is _also_ as unfair an aspect to him as his tall, lean, _strong_ frame.

Deep asleep, though, he looks young and almost harmless—the smug lines of his face have been smoothed out, and shadows curve gently over the line of his jaw and dull its hard, angled shape. From up close, he can see a faint dusting of freckles over the tall, straight slope of his nose and the high vault of his cheekbones, and down the back of his neck. They seem to dance in the lamp as the flame flickers, winking constellations on his skin that belie a life of work under the sun.

Yaku remembers the stories his patrons tell of the red-coated captain that commands _The Grimalkin_ , as wild and ruthless as the ship’s namesake. He knows many versions of Kuroo after all these years, but the biggest version of him, the one whose home is the sea and who sails free and fast to defy other men and nature herself, _that_ Kuroo is one he doesn’t know.

It’s actually quite tragic.

He stands back up and sees over Kuroo’s head that Biscuit is curled up with him, settled on the other pillow. This in itself is a rarity—the cat has made his disdain for the pirate captain pretty clear over the years, but perhaps even _their_ rivalry has a respectful limit. Perhaps Biscuit finds Kuroo to be more agreeable when he’s not saying or doing anything at all. Yaku can’t say he disagrees with that sentiment.

He takes his nightshirt off the hook by the dresser and makes quick work of changing into it, leaving the day’s clothes in a small pile on the floor to wash later in the day. He carefully pulls a thick blanket and an extra pillow out from under the bed and shuffles downstairs. Part of him is a _little_ concerned for Kuroo and reluctant to leave him on his own in the bedroom, but he figures that the other will sleep longer than he will due to the medicine. Yaku settles on the couch, pulling the blanket up to his chin, and decides that he’ll rest for a few hours, and wake up to check on him.

His body seems to register that he is finally, _finally_ laying down, and is practically asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

¤ ¤ ¤

Yaku awakens the next morning with only a vague awareness of how to move his limbs. He feels almost like he’s risen from the dead, his arms and legs made of lead and attached to his body with tiny, thin threads that might snap at the _suggestion_ of movement. He doesn’t ever remember feeling so exhausted.

When he finally _does_ lift his head, there is the sharp ache that shoots down his spine from the base of his head. Sleeping on the couch had _not_ been kind to him. He lets out a quiet groan and sits up further, rubbing at his eyes.

“ _Ah_ , look who’s finally awake.”

Yaku whips around and regrets it instantly when his muscles shout in protest.

But he manages to ignore it when his eyes land on Kuroo—or perhaps it’s more that his brain decides to stop registering _anything_ when he takes in what’s in front of him. The man is leaning on his kitchen table and practically glowing in the sun that streams in through the window behind him. He isn’t wearing a shirt—Yaku remembers blearily that it’s lying in tatters in the kitchen corner—his black breeches are low and tight across his hips, and the relaxed line of his posture reminds him of a cat in the sun, acting every bit like he _belongs_ in this tableau that makes Yaku want to shove his head back under the pillow below him.

Although a quick glance at the clock in the corner of the living room says it’s noon, it’s _still_ entirely too early for him to deal with this.

When Yaku doesn’t say anything, Kuroo takes the silence that’s stretched between them to shove something into his mouth.

He realizes what that _something_ is when he registers the open box on the table.

“My _scones_ ,” he says, aiming to sound pissed, but even to _his_ ears it sounds whiny and petulant. When Kuroo chokes a little trying to stifle a laugh, then doubles over with a grunt when it presumably hurts his side, Yaku feels a little vindicated.

But he also gets to his feet and crosses the distance to the kitchen a little more hurried than usual.

Kuroo is fine by the time he reaches him, having taken helpful sips from a cup he’d presumably helped himself to _along_ with his pilfered breakfast, so Yaku stands there, hands flexing lightly at his sides because he is suddenly out of reasons to be so close to the other.

Kuroo peers down at him, golden eyes holding a lazy interest, like a cat that’s trapped a mouse and isn’t sure whether to eat it or let it be. Yaku feels a little exposed like this, a little like he’s being hunted, but _casually_ , and suddenly all he can think of is every _moment_ Kuroo has made him feel like this in the four years they have known each other. His chest grows tight and his face feels warm to the tips of his ears, so he turns away and tells himself that he is _not_ backing down. He is just _changing tactics_.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, deciding that it’s a good place to start. He feels Kuroo looking at him still, so he moves to stoke the fire in the kitchen’s hearth. But it’s already done. He looks around to the other parts of the kitchen and finds it all neat, organized, and put away. Everything he’d left to do from last night has been taken care of—there is even a kettle hanging over the fire and a full plate of breakfast sitting untouched at the other end of the table. Kuroo hasn’t said a word yet, and when Yaku looks up at him again, he is raising an expectant eyebrow. One that entreats him to _sit_.

Yaku begrudgingly does so, and finds that the plate is still a little warm.

So he really _had_ just eaten the last of the scones to get on his nerves. Bastard.

“Doing fine,” Kuroo answers almost immediately once he’s sitting, and pushes up from his spot _on_ the table to retrieve the kettle from over the fire with the hook beside it like he’s been enchanted. He also pulls a small pot out from the edge of the hearth, and bustles deeper back into the kitchen to the counter where Yaku usually prepared all his food, now just out of his line of sight. Yaku notices an obvious favor for his right side, where he’s uninjured, but true to his words, Kuroo _does_ seem to be fine. He shovels a forkful of eggs into his mouth, follows it up with a slice of meat that Yaku does not recognize from his own pantry, and wonders if Kuroo helped himself to his painkillers, too.

He asks him as much when Kuroo appears again and sets a mug of coffee down in front of him, smelling faintly of chocolate and warm spices, and two perfectly toasted scones oozing thick cherry juice onto the warm plate they sit on.

“Maybe a little,” he replies wryly. “Just enough to take the edge off.”

Yaku looks down when he feels the sudden brush of fur against his bare leg, and sees Biscuit peering back at him with wide, green eyes. Yaku scoops a bit of egg onto his fingers and holds it down for him, and he laps at it while Kuroo perches on the edge of the table and watches the display with thinly-veiled affront.

“He scratched me this morning,” he says like he’s trying to get Yaku on his side.

Yaku scoops a little more egg into his palm and holds it down to him, along with a scratch under his chin and a stage-whispered, _“Good boy.”_

Kuroo reaches down for Yaku’s cup of coffee and takes a sip from it. “Stop feeding him,” he chides lightly. “ _You’re_ the one that needs to eat more. You’re already tiny, yet you get thinner every time I come.”

Yaku takes another bite of meat and eggs and chews it thoughtfully. “That’s probably why he doesn’t like you,” he informs him mildly. “And maybe you’re just forgetting what I look like.”

Something flickers across Kuroo’s face that makes Yaku feel like he said the wrong thing. The other man gets up for a moment, and Yaku turns to watch him make his way over to a pile of stuff stacked on a chair in the parlor that had probably materialized this morning while he was asleep on Kuroo’s orders, and that he’d failed to notice when he’d woken up. There’s an odd set to his shoulders that has settled in since Yaku spoke, but a part of him, nestled quiet, deep, and small behind his ribs convinces the rest of him to not regret it.

He exchanges his half-finished plate of meat and eggs for the scones. He bites into one and is surprised when the rich flavor of butter fills his mouth, the fat and salt mixing with the sour cherry on his tongue in a taste like ambrosia. It’s been a while since he’s thought about buying butter for himself. He washes it down with the coffee, which is sweet and lingers thick and complex in his mouth and warms him from the inside out.

Kuroo disappears deeper into the kitchen again, and when he returns to his place about a foot from where Yaku is seated and eating, he is taking lazy drags from a tobacco pipe that looks more expensive than the table he’s sitting on.

Yaku ignores the view of Kuroo’s profile he has now as the captain considers the grain of the wood wall in front of him like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. He pays no mind to the way Kuroo’s throat and chest move as he breathes, and focuses on his second scone.

“How was your last port?” he finally asks, despite the strangely comfortable silence that has settled between them.

“Fine,” he replies with a hum around the stem of wood in his mouth. He pulls it out and practices a couple of smoke rings. They don’t really take shape—he calls on warm memories of tavern nights and remembers that Bokuto’s are usually better. “Kind of boring, to be honest.”

“Boring?” Yaku repeats around half a laugh, looking up at him again. He feels a pang of jealousy at how blasé he sounds. “You’re just saying that because you’ve been everywhere, anyway. Pirates and sailors always take traveling for granted.”

“Maybe so,” Kuroo says with a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He takes the pipe out of his mouth and taps it against his bottom lip, considering. “But it does tend to lose its glamor after a while, I’d say. Especially when you have things you’d rather be home to.”

Yaku realizes that he recognizes the sensation that had set Kuroo’s shoulders on edge, because now it’s struck him, too. It feels like his ribs have shrunk, cinched tight like a ladies’ corset, and his heart is being pulled backwards into his spine. Kuroo’s words tilt around his head and when he looks up, he sees that maybe Kuroo has inched back in on himself, too. Maybe he’s said the wrong thing and, unlike Yaku, is _actually_ regretting it now.

“Morisuke,” he says, quiet and stilted like a prayer, and Yaku stands up with a harsh scrape of his chair against the floor, rounds the edge of the table and crowds into the space made by the part of Kuroo’s thighs whether he’s invited or not, and kisses him.

Kuroo tastes like the last remnants of the last drag of tobacco he forgot to breathe out and it makes Yaku want to gag, but he presses forward anyways. He registers a faint clatter of something small falling and then feels the warm, sudden press of hands at the small of his back and the jut of his hip. Large palms rest heavy on him and fingers curl and almost graze each other as Kuroo holds him by half of his waist. Each point of contact feels like it’s threatening to burn through the light fabric of his nightshirt, and it’s only intensified when Kuroo _pulls_ on him and they are pressed chest-to-chest.

Yaku’s own fingers, much smaller and almost _delicate_ by comparison, start inside the strong, bare wings of Kuroo’s collarbones, slide over the hard tendons at the base of his neck, and part ways from there. One hand threads into his hair and brushes blunt nails over his scalp, curls the freshly-cut ends around his fingers and pulls just enough to draw a hum out of the other against his lips. His other hand dips down, fingers resting over the muscled planes of his back between his shoulder blades, and his thumb begins to draw absent little circles around the knob that juts out from the very top of his spine.

When Kuroo moves one hand around to Yaku’s front and trails up his stomach and chest in a slow, careful slide, Yaku opens his mouth to him as a reward. The other man sucks on his tongue and Yaku knows he tastes like cherries and chocolate, and some part of his brain wonders if that had been Kuroo’s plan all along in spoiling him with lunch. He’s not sure yet if he should hunt down the poor errand boy that probably ran all around town in the early hours of the morning from their ship to market for him _._ He’s not sure if he should tell said boy what a selfish captain he has, who made him a pawn in his convoluted long-con for his own pleasure, but he files it away for later consideration. It all comes down to whether Yaku finds him guilty of thinking _this_ far ahead.

He feels a palm against his cheek, and the brush of fingers into his hairline and the caress of a thumb on his chin are so astonishing in their tenderness that it makes some part of Yaku want to shake apart. He sucks in a breath against Kuroo’s lips, a spark suddenly going off in his head, and he feels a bit dizzy and bereft as he realizes he might be one piece short of a completed puzzle.

He pulls away from the other’s face, and looks up into it instead. It feels like he’s taking a step into the space that’s been built between them, the gap that’s been doing nothing but growing _wider_ over the four years they’ve taken to get _closer_ to one another.

“What did Daisho say to you?” he murmurs as soon as Kuroo’s eyes open and settle on him, heavy and lidded. This feels important enough to ignore the fire that climbs up from the pit of his stomach and threatens to consume him from the inside out. The need to know what’s going on inside the other man’s head is greater than what’s going on inside his body. _What were you willing to take a knife to the stomach for?_

“Really?” Kuroo laughs, and Yaku suppresses a shiver at how low and _gruff_ his voice sounds right now. He would have never anticipated in a thousand years that he’d have some hand in making him sound so _broken_. It’s a bit addicting.

But Yaku doesn’t allow himself to be swayed by it. _Much._ The insistent need to _know_ is buzzing urgently inside his head like a nest of angry bees. There is little room for much else in his head right now, gaggles of emotions and thoughts flitting through his head so quickly that it makes it almost hurt.

“Really,” he repeats, finally locking gazes with him again. Kuroo’s hand hasn’t moved where it’s cupping his face, but his thumb is running back and forth over his skin, just grazing the edge of his lower lip and brushing the corner of his mouth. It’s intensely distracting, but Kuroo must _sense_ the way Yaku won’t let this go right now. The other blinks, slow, and lets out a breath into the shared space between them.

“It was about you,” Kuroo says at last, his eyes leaving Yaku’s for a brief moment. He would almost feel relieved at that, if not for the fact that he could now _feel_ the other’s gaze tracing over his face like the slow slide of honey, syrupy and heavy on his skin, and it made everything _worse_. He casts his own eyes down and watches Kuroo’s jaw tighten and flex as he grits his teeth, like the memory itself runs the risk of pissing him off again. “None of it was good, and I _won’t_ repeat it, but I promise I made him eat shit for it.”

Now that Yaku’s inserted himself into the space that’s built up in between the two of them, things should be _good_ . So he’s left breathless and aching when instead of a triumphant stride towards the other, it feels like ground is crumbling beneath him. This last piece sliding into place should feel like a solution, but it _doesn’t_ —instead it feels like this single puzzle is only a single piece of a much larger, distressingly _confusing_ whole.

He doesn’t even know if Kuroo’s confession makes him feel better. Rather than something _good_ or _bad_ the way he’d envisioned it heartbeats before, he now sees it as a bottle he’s uncorked and is now helpless to reseal as it bubbles over.

 _Bubbling over_ is a good way to describe Yaku’s thoughts at the present moment, and perhaps they’re working even _faster_ now in the shuddering wake of these revelations hitting him wave after merciless wave. In the midst of his brain screaming at him to _think, think, think,_ Yaku instead relies on the stupidest and most impulsive thing he can think of, in an attempt to shut it all off, at least for _now_.

He leans back in and slots his lips against Kuroo’s.

¤ ¤ ¤

Yaku is laying on his back in his bed, gazing up at the stripes of late afternoon sunlight that paint his ceiling in washes of golden copper. He chews on the end of Kuroo’s pipe, the other end unlit, because if he doesn’t have this then he’d be chewing on his lips, and those are a little too tender to take much of anything else right now.

He lolls his head to the right and drinks in the sight of Kuroo sleeping soundly. He looks just as peaceful and content as the night before, but now, Yaku indulges in reaching up to card his fingers through the bangs that cover only one side of his face. He snorts softly when they fall back into place, stubborn like the rest of him.

The last three or so hours had passed in a dreamy haze. While the first two had been hurried and rather… _impassioned_ , Yaku had spent the last lying close beside the other man, drifting in and out of sleep and exchanging soft brushes of skin and gentle touches in rather easy quiet.

Despite his dogged insistence that he was going to _stay awake_ the last time they’d both been roused about fifteen minutes ago, Kuroo had passed back out immediately—which, truthfully Yaku couldn’t blame him for. Frankly, he was astonished the man had been up for _anything_ they had done so soon after an injury, and now, with a clearer head, Yaku thinks that they really shouldn’t have done _any_ of this, but. Well.

It’s obviously too late for that now. And Kuroo had insisted he was fine at the end of it all.

Yaku turns his eyes back to the ceiling, and he thinks on whether that hindsight evaluation applied to the two of them physically, emotionally, or _both_.

He lets out a long sigh around the end of the pipe. He grits his teeth a bit harder, and wishes it was actually lit. It would be better at calming him down right now. But Kuroo had finished the remains of the pipe right after they’d caught their breath and decided they were _really done_ , for the _last time_ , leaving Yaku with no choice but to venture out for _more_ tobacco if he really wanted it.

And, well. At least it was something else to do instead of lying in bed unable to sleep with how his mind was finally beginning to catch up to things.

By the time he throws on one of Kuroo’s shirts and makes it downstairs in pursuit of the snuff box that had presumably been left in the living room, he’s started to consider something else. He makes his decision when he finally looks at the door on the ground floor off of the living room. It’s a storage closet, filled with his odds and ends, but underneath everything else is a large, metal tub that seems like it holds all the answers.

Despite the inevitable work ahead, the muscles in his legs and lower back and the crick that never really left his neck from earlier all chorus that a bath actually _does_ sound fairly nice right now. He rifles through the laundry pile that Kuroo had brought down to the kitchen that morning, pulls on a pair of breeches, and sets to work.

The constant back-and-forth trudge to the water pump at the back of the tavern is almost meditative in its monotony, and the simple rhythm of it is enough to stay his churning mind that threatens to spill over like a particularly bad storm thrashing a ship adrift at sea.

He almost dozes off again waiting for the kitchen fire to heat up several buckets of water to fill the tub he’s dragged in beside it, but once he pours enough in to mix with the cooler water he’d already added, he is ready to crawl in. Another hour has passed since he’d woken up and started this process. The sun is growing more orange in the sky and the autumn chill is redoubling its efforts, and as Yaku finally, _finally_ sinks into the steaming water of the tub, he is grateful that Sunday is the one day a week he keeps to himself.

He feels tension _and_ fatigue draining from his muscles as though the water itself draws it out, and he gives a long, bone-deep sigh of contentment.

He barely registers he’s drifted off until there are hands working through his hair and massaging strong and steady against his scalp. His body tenses on wary instinct, not able to _see_ the person that’s doing this to him, but a gentle, solid squeeze to the back of his neck like a plea to _relax_ has him slowly easing back into the water. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out, but a glance to his right shows another bucket hanging over the fire that he doesn’t remember putting there.

“Always so reliable, Yakkun,” Kuroo murmurs from somewhere behind him, sounding almost half to-himself. “We’re the ones always making life harder on you. Let someone else look after _you_ for a change, yeah?”

Impossibly warm palms are on him _again_ , planting steady just inside his shoulders with long fingers dipping into the soft, tender spaces just behind his collarbones. He shifts his legs in the water to make a little splash that covers the involuntary whimper that leaves him when Kuroo’s thumbs slide up the back of his neck on either side of his spine with firm, steady pressure, _finally_ easing out the crick.

Kuroo pauses after a couple of minutes, when Yaku’s relaxed enough to be unintentionally sinking into the water and out of his reach. He quickly ducks his head under the water to rinse the suds Kuroo had worked into his hair, and then rests it against the edge of the tub as he watches the other man scoot around to the space between the long edge of the tub and the hearth. He’s only wearing pants, like the very _notion_ of a shirt is somehow an insult to him and his character despite the burgeoning autumn chill. Maybe he’s just being stubborn—Yaku wouldn’t put it past him to be in some state of ludicrous mourning for the untimely demise of his _favorite_ shirt yesterday. Or maybe he’s just parading around half-naked to get a rise out of Yaku. _That_ option is a suggestion he doesn’t really have a rebuttal for, but Kuroo doesn’t need to know that.

He focuses instead on the way Kuroo’s arms flex as he unhooks the bucket from above the fire, tests the water inside with his fingers, and turns to pour it into the tub by Yaku’s feet. Yaku lets out another sigh as the new warmth disperses. Kuroo leans against the edge of the tub, one arm thrown on top of the edge and the other resting on his cocked knee as he smokes from the pipe that’s materialized between his fingers.

Yaku’s eyes slide from his hands to his face to consider him for a moment, and it’s a mistake. The other man’s eyes have been set on fire as the hearth and the sunset streaming in through the kitchen window streak across him in equal measure and clothe him in swaths of bronze and copper. His hair is an inky mess atop his head, wild and untamable as always, but the sunset turns tufts of it into threads of spun gold that coalesce into a halo around his head. He is equal parts exquisite and terrifying in his beauty, and Yaku feels like this is the closest he will ever come to seeing the man that rules the seas with his own whims.

“You can have a turn,” Yaku offers instead of any _number_ of thoughts in his head that _actually_ matter. He is backing _out_ of the space that exists between them, and doesn’t actually ignore the part of him now whispering that he’s a coward. At this point, he agrees with it.

Kuroo looks back at him for a long moment, and Yaku feels the way his eyes settle on the column of his throat, over pale, freckled skin flushed from the water and dappled with bruises and marks from lips and teeth that he _knows_ the other had placed. Despite the fact that he’s already naked, despite the fact that he’d laid bare and open to him in a haze of memories not two hours before— _this_ is the most vulnerable he’s felt, with Kuroo and all of his silent regality regarding him in a way that looks past his skin and perhaps into the parts of himself that Yaku is trying to shutter tight between his ribs.

“I wouldn’t fit in there,” he says, _also_ instead of something significant. He smiles, slow and lazy as he removes his pipe and blows smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Not by a longshot.”

Yaku scoffs and reaches for the pipe, and Kuroo lets him take it. He takes a short drag and lets it out, long and slow. Anything to help the way his heart is suddenly hammering in his chest.

It’s the first time in a _while_ he hasn’t risen to the easy bait, and Kuroo notices, too.

“Hey,” he nudges, and _looks_ at him again in that way that pins Yaku in place. “Talk.”

 _Talk,_ is what he says, but the unspoken truth is there between them, as real as the metal washtub or the fire flickering beside them. What he means is _Let me in._

 _Look at me,_ Kuroo is saying, and for the first time Yaku isn’t annoyed by it _._

With shaking hands, Yaku reaches inside himself, and pulls open that small, small space inside of him. He peels open the shutters and already feels like he’s spent too long in the sunlight, the way that it shines harsh and open and exposing to the deepest parts of himself that have gone ignored for _years_ now. The habit, the knee-jerk reaction is to blame Kuroo for this, _again_ , but these truths that come spilling out leave a bone-deep ache inside him that renders him _tired_ of keeping track of his list.

Every reason to dislike Tetsurou Kuroo is a reason that Yaku had grown attached in the first place, and it’s always been easier to blame the one that keeps leaving rather than _himself_ for allowing things to come this far.

Every day is a struggle to remind himself of the worst parts of the other man, to convince himself that these _feelings_ aren’t worth it, aren’t _worth_ whatever Kuroo might have to offer. Yaku knows it’s not really fair to do this, to demonize him without mercy and not give him a chance, but what is really, _truly_ not fair is Yaku’s heart spilling out of his body without his permission and chasing after someone until it gets to the coastline, as far as he dares to go. What’s not fair is the way Kuroo’s touches feel like home and the way his voice sounds like paradise, and the fact that _Yaku_ never stood a chance against _him_.

Yaku’s always been someone that’s prepared, that’s one step ahead of everyone else. He’s never been a gambler—no matter how many times Suga invites him to cards on one of the tavern tables, he never likes playing games he’s not sure he’s going to win. He never likes asking questions he doesn’t already know the answers to.

And that’s why he’s kept all of this locked up tight for so long. Kuroo is a prize he’s never been sure he could claim, so what’s the point in competing at all? The inevitable endgame of something like this, if he allowed it to get _this_ far, was always going to be _Yaku_ or _the Sea_.

It’s not a problem of trust in Tetsurou that keeps him from broaching this subject, from playing this game. It’s the quiet voice inside of Yaku that asks him _What could you possibly offer a pirate that is worth more than the freedom of the ocean?_

No matter how many times he’s turned the question over in his head, he can’t think of a rebuttal.

It’s why Kuroo only ports here a handful of times a year, and stays for a handful of days at a time or, perhaps a rare _week_ at most when there’s less of a naval presence. It’s why when Kuroo speaks about a particularly exhilarating escape from privateers or the way they weathered a horrific storm on the open sea that Yaku acts like it’s not as impressive as it really _is_ , because it’s easier to write it off than it is to have unproductive feelings of _jealousy_ over an inevitability.

It’s easier to avoid thinking about _any_ of this than to face the truth and waltz knowingly into heartbreak.

 _“Stop,”_ comes Kuroo’s voice, so close that he can feel the shape of the words on his cheek, and when Yaku uncurls from himself all that fills his vision is the other man’s face. Kuroo’s thumb is brushing distractingly against his cheekbone as he cups his face. “Stop drifting off to places that I can’t follow.”

The words are so ironic they almost sting Yaku’s skin, and _do_ make him choke on a laugh.

“That’s rich, coming from _you_ ,” he says finally, trying to look away, but Kuroo’s hand holds fast to his jaw.

“Come with me.”

Yaku freezes, almost thinks he imagined the words.

Kuroo says them again.

“I mean it,” he adds, and for the first time, perhaps ever, Yaku sees Kuroo look _scared_. Uncertain.

“Tetsurou,” he says in reply, his own hands reaching up to touch the other’s shoulder and wrap around his wrist. “Do you really?”

“I do,” he answers, voice quiet and plaintive like before, when Yaku had first kissed him. “I really do, Morisuke. I’ve thought about it for a while. Talked it over with Kou—”

Now, instead of feeling tight and small and locked away, Yaku’s heart feels three sizes too big for his chest. He doesn’t know which is worse. “I can’t.”

Kuroo’s eyebrows twitch, and he blinks. Eyes that had been so filled with certain fire _moments_ before now flare weakly like they’re dying coals. “Why not?”

“Because of _this_ ,” Yaku raises an arm to gesture at the apartment around them, the _tavern_ on the other side of the wall, and water sloshes out of the tub. He shivers a little when he realizes it’s gone cold. “I’m not like you, I can’t just go wherever I want. I can’t just pick up and _leave_ all of this. And I’ve never sailed a day in my life.”

“You’ll learn,” Kuroo supplies, and when Yaku realizes he’s retracted his hands he tries not to miss it. “I’ll teach you. We all will. We’ll take care of you. Like you’ve taken care of us. Of _me_.”

He rakes a hand through his hair, and lets out a surprisingly even breath for someone whose heart is breaking in two. He turns away from Kuroo and shivers as he stands up in the tub. He reaches for the stack of linen cloth he set nearby to start drying off.

“Just think about it,” the other entreats, in a voice so _plaintive_ that Yaku doesn’t think he really _can_ turn around to face him. “Please?”

Yaku sucks in another breath and leans down to pull Kuroo’s shirt back on from where he’d left it beside the tub. The fabric whispers as the open collar droops off one shoulder, and when Yaku finally _does_ turn to meet Kuroo’s eyes again, the other is staring openly at him like he is the most incredible thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

Yaku ignores the way he feels himself blush, all the way across his face and ears and down to his chest, and steps out of the tub. “This is a rare look on you, Tetsurou,” he remarks, and is surprised with how steady and teasing his voice actually sounds. “I’ve never known a pirate, much less a _captain_ , to beg.”

Kuroo stays where he is, knelt in between the fire and the tub, as he reaches up and wraps his hands around Yaku’s waist to pull him in front of himself. He holds his gaze as he flexes his fingers and gives him a light squeeze, and Yaku feels like he might crumble at any moment.

“I’ve just never wanted something bad enough to beg before.”

¤ ¤ ¤

Squeezing between the tables and benches laden with men all around, Yaku continues to collect empty dishes and mugs for refills with the practiced efficiency of someone that’s done this for a while. When he retreats to the counter in the corner, he takes a moment for himself to scratch along Biscuit’s flank as he twitches on the bar top in his sleep. He refills six mugs from the keg and notes to himself that it’s almost out, but getting another will have to wait until things die down and he can enlist some help. As he returns the mugs to their owners, offering little nods and grins at their words of thanks, the doors on the other side of the large hall creak open.

“You’re late,” Yaku calls over the noises of dinner and drink, heading back towards the wall with another stack of dishes in his arms.

“Sorry,” Kuroo drawls as he strolls in, red velvet coat thrown over his shoulders. His shirt hangs loose and open, billowing over dark high-waisted pants. He crosses the room in long strides, moving fluidly through the seated crowd like water, and leans against the bar when he reaches it. “Got held up in a _meeting_.”

“Of course you did,” Yaku replies with a scoff and a roll of his eyes. He continues washing plates in the bin behind the counter. He turns around when he hears a hiss and sees Biscuit sitting up, ears flat and glaring up at Kuroo for presumably interrupting his nap. “Don’t bother him or he’ll bite you again.”

“I wasn’t _bothering_ him,” Kuroo replies, looking slightly affronted. “I was just saying _hello_.”

“You should know by now that being in the same room counts as _bothering_ him,” Yaku replies. “Also, there’s no food. You’re gonna have to wait.”

Kuroo’s face slackens at that. _“Really?”_ he asks, sounding almost petulant.

 _“Really,”_ Yaku repeats, and looks up at him flatly. “That’s why you shouldn’t be late to dinner.”

“You’re so _mean_ , Yakkun,” Kuroo sighs, and now he _does_ sound like he is throwing a tantrum. “It was out of my control. You didn’t even save me a plate?”

“Stop whining. There’s _more_ coming, of course. Fukunaga just has to finish making it.” Yaku sees a hand raise in the middle of the hall to call him over, and he knocks into Kuroo’s thigh with his hip as he rounds the counter and passes him by. “Go somewhere else and pout if you’re going to be like this. I don’t need an extra tripping hazard in here with your freakishly long limbs.”

Kuroo stares at him like breaking the eye contact will result in defeat. Yaku matches him, tilts his chin up, and raises an eyebrow in a challenge that means _What do you want_ me _to do about this?_ A beat passes, and the captain turns away with a huff, and retreats back out of the hall.

Yaku returns his attention to running the room, falling back into an easy rhythm, but doesn’t miss the way that most of the men are looking at him now with various mixes of surprised bewilderment and wry amusement.

The next steaming tray of meat comes up around half an hour later carried by Inuoka, and Yaku takes his leave from his shift that night carrying two plates out the door and up the stairs to the top deck.

 _The Grimalkin_ is truly a gorgeous ship. At some point in time, he’d heard, it had been the Royal Navy’s newest, prettiest vessel, and the crew had captured it around the time Kuroo, Kai, and Bokuto were around eighteen. Now, nine years later, they have risen through the crew ranks enough to be trusted with leadership, and Yaku thinks that they all probably _do_ deserve it, with how clean and tight they run it.

The deck rocks gently underfoot—this was the biggest thing Yaku had needed to grow used to when he’d first come aboard. He’d spent the first week _getting his sea-legs_ , if that meant feeling nauseous and miserable any time the floor rocked, and Kuroo and his bunk-mates were only _partially_ sympathetic for him, considering how natural the rock of the ship was for them. Now after seven months, he hardly pays it any mind—the lilt of the ship and the sounds of waves rolling by on the open sea have become a comfortable ambience.

Yaku sees a few people milling around on the main deck, and nods at them if they look in his direction. It’s an easy night, the sea is calm right now, so most men are simply passing the time. Yaku looks up and sees Bokuto at the helm of the ship a couple decks above, eyes bright and content as he peers out over the water that glistens with the light of the moon in the sky.

He climbs up the steps to the quarterdeck and stops by as he passes. He stretches one of the plates out to him, with a large extra bread heel on it, and says “Here.”

“Seriously?” he asks, blinking down at Yaku.

“Not the _whole thing_ ,” Yaku clarifies with a wry smile. “But you asked for extra bread, remember?”

Bokuto had been the first to duck into the kitchen that evening around four while Yaku worked with the rest of the cooks to prepare dinner. He’d griped that he was the helmsman on duty until past midnight and that it was the _worst_ shift because it always left him inexplicably more hungry. Yaku had taken pity on him—something about the man’s constant sincerity always gave him a soft spot, not to mention that indulging him usually annoyed Kuroo—and he allowed him two helpings of dinner and promised to bring extra by later once most of the rest of the crew had finished.

He seems to have already forgotten this exchange, but the enthusiasm he has for appreciating Yaku’s kindness is almost embarrassingly endearing.

“You’re the _best_ , Yakkun,” he declares emphatically, and _hell_ , Yaku gives him his own chunk of bread, too. “Next time we pull good loot, I’ll make sure you get extra.”

Yaku laughs and starts to leave him. “That’s Kai’s job,” he reminds him. “ _He’s_ the Quartermaster.”

“Yeah, but I’ll put in a good word for you!” Bokuto insists, loud and boisterous.

“Bokuto, keep your voice down.” Akaashi intones, and Yaku turns his head to see the other man seated against the ship railings a couple feet away. He has a lantern set up beside him and a book in his lap—it’s not a surprising set-up, the younger man usually keeps him company on nights like this when he is free and Bokuto isn't. Yaku can’t help but wonder with a little fondness about who started the arrangement. Akaashi lifts his eyes to meet and hold Yaku’s, and they glimmer slightly in the low firelight. “Besides, it’s not like he needs _your_ help. Yaku already has the captain wrapped around his finger.”

This sets Bokuto off on a rambling tangent that starts with _“You’re probably right, Akaashi!”_ and continues on with _“Remember that one time a week ago when Kuroo and Yakkun—”_ and Yaku takes back every nice feeling he’s ever had about Akaashi.

“Goodnight, Bokuto. Goodnight, Akaashi.” Yaku declares quickly, and stalks off before Akaashi has the chance to recognize that a blush has started to bloom over his cheeks.

When he finally reaches his destination, he balances both plates on one hand and arm, and knocks twice before trying the door. It’s unlocked, and Yaku lets himself in.

If the ship itself is beautiful, then the captain's quarters are exquisite. The chamber he walks into is large and divided into roughly three clean spaces, and Yaku can see the hints of naval pride and organization in the moldings on the floor and ceiling and the craftsmanship of some of the furniture that remains. However, more apparent than that is the brash excess of piracy, and on most surfaces sit expensive, grand objects and furniture, all of which probably come with a story written on the opposite side of their hefty metaphorical price tags. The disconnect between these two themes is as amusing as it is impressive, and speaks to the fact that _this_ crew, this _captain_ , wants others to know all of the things he’s done. 

The center third houses a huge, solid table in the center of the room likely meant for maps, meetings, and strategy. Right now, it’s home to a game of poker put on pause, complete with an egregious pot in the middle. Yaku has memories of games like these, played between Kuroo, Bokuto, Kai, and Akaashi, fueled through an entire night by alcohol and lots of bluffing and snark, and halted with the grumbled threat that they’ll _finish after some rest_. It was usually Yaku reminding them that at least _one_ of them had posts in a handful of hours that finally spurred them into setting the cards down, but entering a tenuous gentleman’s agreement that none of them would look at the cards in each other’s absence.

Off to the left of this is a sitting area under an alcove of windows, half of which are stained glass, which makes the entire area feel more like a cross between a solarium and a church apse than anything that should be used by… well, _criminals_. The couch that sits with its back to the windows is large and upholstered in deep blue velvet, and doesn’t match the plush green armchair beside it nor the rich purple damask chaise lounge across the ebony coffee table in the center. Along the back wall in the corner sits a small table that houses a silver tea-serving set that winks in the lantern light that fills the space, and crystal decanters that Yaku assumes are filled with expensive and exotic liquors. The only trait that unites all of the furnishings in the space is frankly how _gaudy_ everything looks.

Yaku turns his attention to the right third of the room, and takes in the massive desk that sits like a regal lion atop a show-stopping red and gold rug. The polished mahogany gleams with an indescribable sheen, and sitting atop it are books, charts, and missives that all seem to vie for the attention of the person seated behind it. Right now, that is the captain, _his_ captain, and he looks up from the parchment he’s been writing on and sets his quill aside.

“Yakkun,” Kuroo hums as he stretches and leans back into the desk’s equally-beautiful chair like it’s his throne. Perhaps it really is. “Have you come to apologize for humiliating your dear captain in front of the mess hall tonight?”

“No,” Yaku replies plainly as he approaches the desk, rounds the corner, and sees Biscuit asleep on a thick velvet pillow behind Kuroo’s chair. That’s not an unusual sight, either, as he’d made his home there within the first few days of arriving on board. Other crew members that work on the lower decks tell him that the calico has a pretty good relationship with the other ship cats—the ones who catch mice to keep them out of the cargo—but he always returns here to Kuroo’s quarters to sleep and lounge when he gets bored of the other parts of the ship. Yaku can’t blame him—this is the lap of luxury. It’s just unfortunate that he likes what the captain has to _offer_ , and still not the man _himself_. But perhaps one day he’ll come around.

Yaku moves a handful of books aside and sets one of the plates down. “But here’s dinner.”

“I’ll consider that your apology,” Kuroo hums as he takes a sip from a cup he has sitting within reach. It’s a beautiful gold thing, with filigree wrapping around the stem. Yaku doesn’t think he’ll ever really get over the disconnect that all of this luxury is dime-a-dozen around here. The flatware is impossibly expensive, but it’s also _free_. Technically speaking.

“Well you shouldn’t,” Yaku shoots back as he sets his own plate down for a moment to retrieve cutlery and out of a side table against the wall. He also takes the moment to refill Kuroo’s cup with wine and pours some for himself. He resettles on the edge of the desk afterwards, his legs swinging where they don’t touch the floor. “Because I’m not sorry.”

“My, my,” Kuroo sighs, half-to himself as he picks up his silverware and begins to eat. “ _How_ will I _possibly_ face my crew when they all know that I let a little kitchen hand sass me without punishment?”

Yaku cuts off a piece of meat and chews it delicately, considering his words for a moment. “Having dinner with you is punishment enough.”

“You’re so _mean_ , Yakkun—are you sure you love me?”

He stops eating at that, and looks at the other man. Kuroo seems to sense this pause, and looks up at him. Though his words were light and playful, meant to tease, Yaku holds his gaze and gives a very serious, “Yes.”

The way Kuroo’s eyes widen comically and a blush explodes across his cheeks is worth missing every barbed comment he could have thrown back instead. He might’ve even spit out his wine, if he was taking a drink. Yaku smiles into the rim of his own cup at the thought.

“Well,” Kuroo begins intelligently. “That’s. Great, actually.” He pauses, clears his throat. “Glad to hear it.”

“What, like it’s a surprise?” Yaku asks with a laugh, looking down at the other as he tilts the cup in his hand thoughtfully. “I give my family’s business over to Suga, sell almost everything I own, sign myself over to a life of crime and come aboard a ship with _no_ sailing experience. Do you think I would do any of that for someone I _didn’t_ love, Tetsurou?”

“No,” the other man sighs, running a hand through his hair, a smile _finally_ spreading across his face. His cheeks are still pink, like his body can’t quite believe what it’s hearing. “I guess you wouldn’t.”

“Good,” Yaku declares, setting his cup down and using his foot to scoot Kuroo’s chair back from the desk. He moves along the edge of the desk into the space the captain had just been, and slides down into his lap like he was supposed to be there all along. “I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.”

He traces his hands up the front of Kuroo’s chest, over the edges of silk fabric opened over warm skin, and pulls him down by the back of the neck into a kiss. Kuroo makes a noise of surprise in the back of his throat, but seems to catch up rather quickly and wraps his own arms around Yaku.

The past half a year on the ship had certainly been an adjustment, Yaku will freely admit that. Even before that was the three months of liminal waiting, where he’d decided to _go_ with Kuroo but needed more than a few days’ notice to get his affairs in order first. Kuroo had eagerly promised to come back for him then, and the three months that stretched between those two moments felt like an overlong intermission. One chapter of his life was coming to a close, but the next one was taking its own sweet time to begin.

Many, many nights Yaku had lain awake by himself, wondering if it was _still_ a good idea. But those concerns vanished completely on the day in the dead of winter when Kuroo had burst into _The Scruffy Cat_ , _lifted_ Yaku into his arms, and practically _insisted_ on carrying him the entire way from the tavern to the ship. (He’d gotten to the road in front of the tavern before Yaku had kicked up enough fuss to walk on his own and relegate Kuroo with carrying his things.)

Once Yaku had gotten over his initial _adjustment_ to ship life, he was surprised at how easily he’d taken to it. He knew most of the faces already, after four years of consistent patronage, and they were surprisingly receptive to helping him out, fashioning him a seafarer from the ground up. Yaku found his place between helping in the mess hall and kitchen and working in the surgeon’s quarters, and found that despite what people said about pirates being listless, lazy thieves, there was a strong regimentation that formed the backbone of their days and work ethics.

That also had _everything_ to do with the strength of their captain, of course.

True to Yaku’s thoughts once upon a time, Kuroo was equal parts wild and unrelenting on the seas. He commanded a respect from his crew that was practically magnetic, and his knowledge of when to use the crook and when to use the flail ensured that things were decidedly fair on board. The trust on the ship was so _mutual_ , everyone was so _connected_. He was often busy, running his own intense schedule that meant supervising rather strictly but also remaining open and available to his fellow mates.

Despite these things, Kuroo _still_ found time to haunt Yaku whenever he was able. Akaashi referred to it as _courting_ , Yaku just called it _being generally worse than he could ever remember_.

But all the same, Yaku still found himself drawn to Kuroo the way the tide was drawn to the sea. Getting to know this new side of him was _exciting_ at its most basic level, and Kuroo must have felt at least _partly_ the same way, given the amount of time the captain had devoted to stealing Yaku away to his quarters for things that had… well, _nothing at all_ to do with sailing or maintaining a ship.

“Hey,” Kuroo whispers, and Yaku shivers as the line of his nose traces along his jaw and nudges it up to open up his neck. He grunts, probably momentarily distracted and _offended_ by Yaku’s collar and neck sash. Yaku reaches up to untie it himself and let it hang open around his throat, as Kuroo’s hands are currently occupied with running along the tops of his muscled thighs. When he gets his lips back on the thin skin over his pulse just above his collarbone, Yaku _feels_ his next words against his skin more than he hears them. “You’re thinking too much. Come back to me.”

“Don’t worry,” Yaku sighs, suppressing a shiver as Kuroo grazes his teeth over his collarbone. He uses the fingers he has in the other’s hair to pull his head back up and _look_ at him. “It was all about you.”

He surmises that he probably needs to indulge in dropping these little unexpected truths more often if he gets to see Kuroo _this_ flustered and at a loss for words. They certainly work better at getting under the captain’s skin than any sarcasm or veiled threat he’s drummed up over the past five years. Though he’s never said it out loud, he knows deep inside himself that one word from Kuroo would have him dropping this game of cat-and-mouse between them entirely.

It’s not really a chase or a game between predator and prey if Yaku knows he’s been caught from the beginning. He’s accepted the fact that now, the game has never really been with Kuroo at all, but with himself, trying to trick him _out_ of love.

The little truths Yaku speaks to Kuroo are victories on a parade home to the space between his ribs that was once small and tight, but grows larger with every day he spends here, on this ship and in his company. His head is much quieter and restful now, and he doesn’t think much of apples anymore unless they’re on the menu for the day’s dinner.

His list of reasons to dislike Tetsurou Kuroo has grown so small to the point of being forgotten. Infinitely longer and more pressing now is the list of reasons to love him, and Yaku fears that maybe one day it will grow too large and spill out of his head and turn out to be the size of the seas they sail.

Yaku ducks down and leans in to kiss Kuroo, soft and slow on the lips before the man can fuss at him for drifting off again. He decides that instead of being _afraid_ of feeling exposed like he was once a long time ago, he will revel in it.

He will await it eagerly, in fact, because he can’t _wait_ to see the shock on Kuroo’s face, how _red_ his might get, and whether someone else will need to fill in for him as captain of the ship while he recovers. Yaku will do all he can to take care of him, of course, will stay by his side as he recovers, but he will probably _never_ let him live it down.

**Author's Note:**

> did u guys know that pirates could get gay married
> 
> First Haikyuu fic turned into a bit (read: a lot) of a monster. Never call something a "quick Sunday project one-shot :)" because then, inevitably, it will balloon out of control.
> 
> Also, the biggest thank you in the WORLD to lovely Casper and Jolie, who were the TRUE champions and not only fielded my creative process kvetching, but beta'd this monster when it was all said and done. Jolie also helped with the title!!
> 
> If you made it this far, you have my eternal gratitude for stopping by and reading. ♡
> 
> yell at me about kuroyaku or hq in general on bird app [@cherielimeade](https://twitter.com/cherielimeade)


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